OK, I admit, they dont get as dirty. But run a silencer on anything and you'll get filth everywhere.
This is my HK 416 upper, I ran it with an AAC 416 silencer at the last Magpul Dynamics class here in St Augustine. 2 days, 2000 rounds. I only took the silencer off the start of day 2 for a few drills, I would guess about 150 rounds. All the rest were with the can. I dropped some lube in the gun at the start of the class, aside from that, no cleaning, no oil, nothing at all. No problems either, well, not really. I will admit, I have run regular DI guns like this without problems, but I needed to keep dumping oil on the bolt group. In fact, one of the guys who works with me ran his Noveske N4 with a AAC M4 2000 right next to me the whole class. His gun ran fine as well, but he did keep dumping lube into the bolt carrier.
Anyway, the gun was fiilthy. I have never cleaned a gun that was so dirty. Grime and crud was seeping out between the upper and lower trying to escape. It is worth mention that a large piece of carbon built up and fell under my trigger group toward the end of the second night. I thought it was a primer, but when I opened the gun up and shoot the lower, it was plainly a piece of carbon. So technically, the gun did comletely fail. I have seen this same thing happen one other time, in another Magpul class (actually the one from the last DVD). My friend Derek was running a gun with a can on it for about as many rounds. Same thing, crud kept building up until some of it found its way under the trigger group.
Anyway, here's some pics of the filth.